Would you allow your child to marry or date outside your culture or religion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Drove a carpool recently and one of the teens remarked on who his parents would allow him to marry. Others agreed. At least one set of the parents is second Gen, born and raised here. It was a little surprising to me how strict some parents in the DMV are in 2025.

Anyone else encounter this?

Indian?

JD Vance's wife seems fine with it. Kamala Harris' mom dealt with it as well.

+1 So was my family. And all my friends'. So why don't you STFU.

[Anonymous]

We are proud Arabs Muslims, and that matters deeply to us. But we are not foolish enough to think that you can wield influence on your children in this country to where they will hold on to our traditions and culture. We know the only way to preserve our culture is to leave the US. So we are making plans for that.

[Anonymous]

This is why we don’t do any religion in our family. It causes too many issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Drove a carpool recently and one of the teens remarked on who his parents would allow him to marry. Others agreed. At least one set of the parents is second Gen, born and raised here. It was a little surprising to me how strict some parents in the DMV are in 2025.

Anyone else encounter this?

Indian?

JD Vance's wife seems fine with it. Kamala Harris' mom dealt with it as well.

Mamdani's mom did it.

Both of Mamdani’s parents are of Indian descent. They do not practice the same religion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't be friends with people who are racist, so this wouldn't be coming up in a carpool.

Mistreating kids because of your disagreements with their parents is so cool!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fourth or fifth gen American so of course this sounds crazy to my ear. But if my family was more recently arrived I could understand the desire to keep a culture/language/religion connection to my heritage.

As it is, I would have a conversation with my kid about the potential issues down the line but I don't think forbid/allow is the correct framework.

Right, everyone know that ""fourth or fifth gen Americans" don't have any racist or bigoted attitudes that they force on their children or the country at large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clearly, none of you have/had first generation immigrant parents. The pressure was real in my house. Now, my parents couldn’t force me to marry within my religion bc of my age, but I did bc I wanted to and I found the right guy. 25 years and counting….

If your strong in your religion or care how your (eventual) kids are raised, it can very much matter. That doesn’t make anyone a racist.

I will continue to disagree with you. These folks are absolutely racist.

Religion is not a race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the biggest struggles I've seen was when a first gen kid married a person nominally of their culture and religion, but the person was a recent immigrant and was much more modern about it. The parents had kind of kept their culture of origin the same, like it was at their time of immigration in the 1970s, and much of their peer group had too. But the place of origin itself had not stayed the same, so the new wife wasn't doing their version of the culture. Very weird dynamic because they thought it would work well but it really didn't.

Was this an Indian American "boy" who was hoping to marry a nice Indian "girl", just like his mom, but thought all the Indian American raised girls were too independent? Hahahah! (Indian American "girl" who was the bad example in our community because I went far away for college and didn't get married until I was in my late 30s).


Anyway -my mom isn't Indian, but acclimatized so well that the other Indian aunties would complain to her when their sons were engaged to white women.

They would have preferred I married someone they could relate to more, but didn't insist.

A lot of my peers growing up weren't "allowed" to date unless it was for marriage and then only Indian (and the right kind) - maybe 25% followed thru with that?

Some parents asserted control via money - especially after college. Which frankly, at that point, I see it as part of the deal - we'll cover your car payment and luxury apartment - you maintain our family status.

[Anonymous]

All these people saying "parents can't 'allow' their adult children anything" don't understand that in some cultures they absolutely can, and this is why they don't allow their kids to marry people like you.

Conservative cultures gonna conserve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I married into a religious family as a non-practicing person. It caused issues for many years. In the end I wouldn’t encourage it but also wouldn’t vocally discourage it as it’s not my decision to make. It

Same

[Anonymous]

We are already a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic household.

So of course I would be entirely fine with my children marrying people outside of our three cultures!

The more the merrier!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't be friends with people who are racist, so this wouldn't be coming up in a carpool.

You have no idea how 'racist' some groups of immigrants are, it would blow your mind.

Of course we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Drove a carpool recently and one of the teens remarked on who his parents would allow him to marry. Others agreed. At least one set of the parents is second Gen, born and raised here. It was a little surprising to me how strict some parents in the DMV are in 2025.

Anyone else encounter this?

Indian?

JD Vance's wife seems fine with it. Kamala Harris' mom dealt with it as well.

Mamdani's mom did it.

Both of Mamdani’s parents are of Indian descent. They do not practice the same religion.

Yes. The question was whether you'd allow your child to marry or date outside your culture OR your religion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clearly, none of you have/had first generation immigrant parents. The pressure was real in my house. Now, my parents couldn’t force me to marry within my religion bc of my age, but I did bc I wanted to and I found the right guy. 25 years and counting….

If your strong in your religion or care how your (eventual) kids are raised, it can very much matter. That doesn’t make anyone a racist.

I will continue to disagree with you. These folks are absolutely racist.

This happens in many communities with strong religious affiliation. Have you not met any Jewish families? While there are obviously inter-faith marriages, I know plenty of people who strongly discourage dating/marrying out of their faith. My friend's sister was disowned for marrying a non-Jew. For a Muslim to marry a non-Muslim, the non-Muslim has to agree to convert.

[Anonymous]

South Asian and/or Muslim for sure

-South Asian Muslim